


when your name lights up my screen

by groundopenwide



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Dan loves Instagram, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, but not as much as he loves Charlie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24035938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundopenwide/pseuds/groundopenwide
Summary: “Dan does everything for the ‘gram,” Will says solemnly.
Relationships: Charlie Barnes/Dan Smith
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	when your name lights up my screen

**Author's Note:**

> here's a dumb little thing for your reading pleasure bc charlie is, in fact, the star of the @bastilledan instagram page (or at least he was at one point).
> 
> title is from "joy." duh.

The first time, Charlie has no clue what’s happening.

“Everyone, meet our newest member, Charlie. Say hello, Charlie!”

Charlie’s so nervous he almost misses the words. He looks up at the last second from tuning his guitar to find Dan’s phone trained on him. 

He squints and says, “what?”

“A bit different than ‘hello,’ but alright,” says Dan, turning the phone back onto himself. “So, yeah, that was Charlie.”

“What?” Charlie says again, but Dan isn’t listening.

*

The second time, Charlie’s busy chatting with Will when Dan pops up next to them, phone in hand.

“They’re probably talking very serious guitar stuff,” he conspiratorially tells the camera.

“We’re deciding what to have for lunch,” says Charlie.

Dan’s face falls. He looks back and forth between them, says “ah,” and then walks away, shoulders slumped.

Charlie watches him go, his brow furrowing. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Dan does everything for the ‘gram,” Will says solemnly. He claps a reassuring hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

*

The third time, Charlie’s slightly more prepared.

“We’re here in Chicago,” Dan’s saying as he spins around in the middle of the stage (his signature move, or so Charlie’s told). When he finally comes to a stop, he points his phone at the ceiling, then at his feet, then over at Charlie. “There’s Charlie. He’s judging me.”

“Only a little,” Charlie tells the camera, and Dan smiles like Charlie’s just given him the best birthday gift ever.

*

“Hello Charlie.”

“Hello Dan.”

“What are we doing?”

“Drinking coffee,” says Charlie, holding up his cup for effect. 

Dan scoots his chair closer and switches to the front-facing camera so they’re both in the frame. He raises his own cup and says, “we love coffee.”

Charlie takes a sip and arches an eyebrow for dramatic effect. It makes Dan burst out laughing. He stops recording and bends over to wheeze into his knees for a moment, his coffee cup shaking precariously between his fingers.

It really isn’t that funny, but Charlie likes the sound of Dan’s laugh, so he lets it slide.

*

“Charlie’s a great dancer, isn’t he?”

Charlie’s in the middle of doing a little wiggle-spin behind his keyboard while they soundcheck “Things We Lost in the Fire.” He pauses when Dan turns the camera on him. The compliment makes him go all warm and fuzzy inside. “Am I?”

“Better than me. I’m shit.”

“You aren’t,” Charlie protests. “You just have to—y’know.”

He punctuates the sentence with another spin and an arm wave. Dan laughs a little and shakes his head.

“There you have it. Dancing by Charlie Barnes,” Dan tells the camera. “See how there’s no jumping involved? I should take notes.”

“I like your jumping,” Charlie says.

“Oh,” Dan says. His face has gone a bit red. “Thanks.”

*

“I think he’s asleep.”

Charlie cracks one eye open to find Dan crouched in front of him, glasses slipping down his nose and phone in hand. Dan smiles when their eyes meet, one edge of his mouth quirking upwards, and Charlie tries on a scowl in response to disguise the way his breath is suddenly stuck in his throat. 

“Not anymore,” he says. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Dan says back. He reaches out with his free hand and ruffles Charlie’s hair. “Check out this bedhead, you guys. It’s top notch.”

“Oi,” Charlie protests, but he can’t help the smile that breaks out across his face. 

*

“Charlie’s got the best voice in the band,” Dan tells the camera.

Charlie looks up, startled, pausing in the middle of the lyrics he’s been half-singing into his phone. “What are you on about?”

Dan takes a seat next to him on the floor of their makeshift recording space (which is really just a tiny room at the very back of the tour bus). He’s close enough that their knees bump. He moves the camera from the computer, to the little keyboard in Charlie’s lap, to Charlie’s face. “Look at this. All the makings of a masterpiece.”

“I’m just messing around,” Charlie says, feeling his cheeks flame. 

“I bet it’s really good,” Dan says, and it’s—not for the camera, anymore. He’s looking right at Charlie, his expression very, very serious. “You’re really good.”

“Oh,” Charlie says, breathless. His heart beats in his ears. “Thanks.”

*

They’re all a bit drunk. 

“Wait, wait, try and get on the chair,” Kyle says. “You know, like—spin it, and then—”

Charlie takes up post behind the chair in the center of the room and points at Dan. “You. Are you getting this for Instagram?”

Dan is laughing so hard, his words come out more as hiccups. “My—my phone is dead. Shit, my phone is dead!”

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” Kyle says, digging his own phone out of his pocket. “Hang on, just—fuck, how do you work Snapchat again—”

“You hold the button!” Dan wrestles for possession of the phone. “Here, let me—”

“Get off me—”

They scuffle around for a moment. Kyle comes out victorious, obviously, because he’s the size of a very tall tree. 

Dan folds his arms over his chest. _“I’m_ the band historian. It’s my job.”

“You can be in the video for once. Go on, get over there!”

“This isn’t going to end well,” Will calls from across the room.

“Fuck off,” Charlie calls back. 

Dan makes his way over and leans on Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie stumbles under the weight but doesn’t push him away. 

“How are we going to do this?” Dan asks.

“We spin it, and then—count to three and try to sit?” Charlie says.

“On three? Or after three?”

“I’m not driving anyone to the hospital,” Will adds.

“On three,” Charlie says firmly.

“Okay,” Kyle says. “I think I’ve—shit, I’m recording. Go, go, go!”

“Fuck.” Dan grabs the back of the chair and pushes it into motion. Charlie’s already dizzy just watching it. “One.”

“Two.”

They look at each other and yell in unison, “three!”

It’s a full-on disaster. They hit the chair at the same time and the momentum sends it skittering across the floor. Charlie ends up sitting on the bottom, clinging to an armrest for dear life with Dan’s too-sharp knees and elbows digging into his stomach. They push and pull at one another and the chair spins round and round and round. Charlie’s laughing so hard he can’t breathe. He hears Will mutter a “jesus christ” as the chair finally hits the wall and careens to a stop, both of them tumbling off into a tangled heap on the floor.

Charlie can’t stop laughing. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“That was so bad,” Dan says between giggles.

His face is somewhere in the vicinity of Charlie’s armpit and their legs are wound together like a pretzel. Charlie elbows him, and Dan elbows him back, and then they’re making another ruckus right there on the floor. Dan digs his fingers against Charlie’s stomach and Charlie shrieks, honest to god _shrieks,_ tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he laughs and laughs until his ribs hurt. “Stop—I can’t—uncle! Uncle!”

Dan finally pulls away. He’s beaming down at Charlie, dimples like craters in his cheeks, and his hair is a right mess. He looks like a baby just woken up from a nap. Charlie’s heart does a skip-jump in his chest.

“That was epic,” Kyle announces. “Snapchat will love it.”

“Actual children,” Woody says, shaking his head.

Dan climbs to his feet and offers Charlie a hand, pulling him up as well. They grin at each other like lunatics. Charlie says, “let’s do it again.”

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Will tells them.

*

Charlie’s lying in bed a few hours later, waiting for the room to stop spinning, when he gets an Instagram notification.

_bastilledan tagged you in a story_

It’s the stupid video from earlier. There they are, crawling all over each other like ants while the chair ricochets around the room. He’s going to have multiple bruises in the morning. Dan’s captioned it: _me and @charliebarnesmusic have fun!!!_ with the little two-person emoji.

Charlie shares it to his own story and adds: _good times, bad decisions._ Dan texts him seconds later.

_that’s good can i use that_

Charlie answers with a big yellow heart emoji. _of course!!_

Dan sends back ten red hearts in a row, along with a random thumbtack emoji in the middle.

*

Dan’s filming Charlie prepping his coffee backstage in the green room when he suddenly snorts and announces, “Soph thinks we should change the account name to ‘bastilledanandcharlie.’”

“That doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Charlie says.

“It _is_ a bit of a mouthful.”

“She’s right, though. The entire page is Charlie these days,” Woody says from his spot on the sofa.

“It’s not,” Dan says.

“Uh, yeah, it is. Check out the last, like, twenty posts.”

Woody holds up his phone. He has the bastilledan profile open, and sure, alright, there’s a picture of Charlie with his guitar—and Charlie and Dan on the beach in Vancouver—and Charlie flashing a thumbs up at the camera while he stands next to the world’s largest rubber band—

“Yesterday your story was just 45 seconds of Charlie trying to beatbox,” says Woody.

“Okay, but how wicked would a beatboxed version of ‘Way Beyond’ be?” says Charlie.

“The day before that, it was you guys rating different Starbucks blends,” says Will. _“Starbucks.”_

“You’re basically just a Charlie Barnes fan account at this point,” Woody tells Dan.

Dan’s face has turned the color of a tomato. 

“I need to,” he says, then practically sprints out of the room.

Charlie blinks at the empty space he’s left behind, beyond confused. He turns to Kyle, who’s in the midst of pulling a shirt on over his head. 

“What do you reckon?” he asks.

Kyle’s head reemerges from the ball of fabric. He nods sagely. “Dan’s your biggest fan.”

*

That night after the show, Charlie’s lying in his bunk on the bus, staring at the ceiling just centimeters away from his face (which isn’t so much the ceiling as it is the bottom of _Dan’s_ bunk). 

It’s been a weird night. Dan’s been all shifty, running off with some excuse whenever the two of them have come close to being alone together. He hadn’t even come to Charlie’s side of the stage during the final bit of “Of the Night”, so Charlie was stuck playing his solo on his own, without Dan doing stupid jumping jacks across from him or reaching out to mess him up. 

Charlie opens up Instagram and takes a picture of the ceiling. _@bastilledan is mad at me :((_ he writes, drawing an arrow that he hopes translates to _that’s Dan up there._ Then he posts it to his story like the lame, mopey person he is.

People reply with all kinds of crying faces and broken heart emojis. He gets a bunch of _aww’s_ and _oh no’s._ Woody responds with _so the honeymoon phase is over eh?_

Minutes later, he gets a text from Dan. 

_i’m literally right above you_

_didn’t think you wanted to talk to me,_ Charlie sends back with the sad-but-thoughtful emoji.

“Sorry,” Dan’s voice says. 

Charlie pulls open his privacy curtain and sticks his head out to find Dan standing in the narrow hallway, hair ruffled and glasses on and feet bare. He rubs the back of his neck and jerks his head toward the front of the bus. 

“Wanna talk?”

“Some of us are trying to sleep,” comes Will’s voice from inside his bunk.

“Sweet dreams,” Dan says back. 

Will’s hand pops out from behind his own curtain to flip them off.

Charlie climbs out of his bunk and follows Dan to the lounge. He sits down on the sofa and crosses his arms over his chest, because it’s cold as shit and his Local Natives jumper is doing fuck all to ward off the chill. He decides to open with a very mature, “So you aren’t mad at me?”

Dan sits down next to him, their shoulders brushing. “You’re the one who looks mad at me.”

“It’s cold. And you kept running off earlier.”

“Sorry,” Dan says again. “I just had to—think about some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

Dan’s expression goes thoughtful. He’s got his phone in hand, and he flips it over to unlock it, holding it so that Charlie can’t see what he’s doing.

“You know, it’s a bit rude to use your phone in the company of others,” Charlie says without heat.

A moment later, his own phone vibrates. He rolls his eyes at Dan and pulls it out to look. 

_bastilledan tagged you in a story_

It’s a photo. Above it are the words _yes, i am @charliebarnesmusic’s biggest fan._ Below, it reads, _...understandably. he’s cute, right?_

The photo itself is one Charlie hadn’t even known was being taken, obviously, because in it, he’s asleep on this very sofa, wrapped in one of the extra fuzzy blankets they keep on the bus. Just the top of his head and part of his face is visible. It’s a stupid picture, but for some reason Charlie’s stomach gets all twisted up as he looks at it.

“You think I’m cute?” It’s meant to come out teasing. It doesn’t, not really.

Dan ducks his head. “Among other things.”

 _Fuck it,_ Charlie decides, and hoists himself right into Dan’s lap. Dan lets out a soft _oof_ and turns a shade of red that probably hasn’t even been classified on the color spectrum yet, but doesn’t push him away. 

“Want to break Instagram?” Charlie asks.

Dan’s eyes go wide. “Do I want to know what you’re thinking?”

“Nothing scandalous,” Charlie says. He drops his eyes to Dan’s mouth, which looks very pink and very soft and very, very tempting. “Actually, hold that thought.”

He kisses Dan. Dan kisses him back, doesn’t even hesitate—just grabs onto Charlie’s hips and licks into his mouth until Charlie’s making some extremely undignified noises and contemplating doing a lot of unsavory things (things not meant for this sofa, which is only a few steps from where their bandmates are—hopefully—sleeping).

“That definitely would’ve broken Instagram,” Dan says once they’ve separated.

“That just broke _me,”_ Charlie says, breathing hard. 

He crawls off Dan’s lap before he can do something stupid, like start snogging him again. He doesn’t get far, though—Dan puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him back in, and then they’re proper cuddling, and Dan’s so warm and smells so good and Charlie never, ever wants to do anything else except this.

He pulls out his phone and opens up the front-facing camera. “Quick, look like you love me.”

“Easy,” Dan says, and Charlie fumbles his phone, nearly dropping it—

Dan’s fingers reach out to steady his own. He takes the phone from Charlie’s grasp and holds it up with one hand while the other rubs small circles into his shoulder. 

“Say cheese,” he says, and Charlie barely remembers to smile before the flash goes off.

*

_[photo]_

_**charliebarnesmusic:** i guess @bastilledan is pretty cute too. _

_p.s. don’t worry, he isn’t mad at me anymore. quite the opposite in fact._

**Author's Note:**

> come be a pal on [tumblr!](http://goodlesson.tumblr.com)


End file.
